


a softer beginning, a kinder end

by pentaghastly



Category: Archie Comics, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, F/M, archie gets called dumb a lot but i swear i love him, cheryl isn't in this as much as she should be it's more a veronica-study of gay, he's just....dumb but he's Trying His Best, luckily literally everyone else does, veronica is a super gay and she just doesn't know it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 02:19:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10934946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentaghastly/pseuds/pentaghastly
Summary: “Oh. Mygod,” Kevin groans, slamming his water bottle against the table with a thud before turning to her. “Veronica, can you and Cheryl do us all a favour and screw each other’s brains out in the storage room before I actually lose my mind? As much as I adore a good enemies-to-lovers story, the sexual tension is getting to the point where it’s making me physically ill.”Silence.More.“Way to take the subtle approach there, Keller,” Jughead mutters under his breath, and Veronica is starting to get the feeling that Kevin’s comment wasn’t just light teasing. She’s starting to get the feeling Kevin’s comment was actually more of a suggestion.(Or,The One Where Archie Tries To Do the Right Thing, and Ends Up Temporarily Making Everything WorseOr,Everything is Always Gayer Than It Seems)





	a softer beginning, a kinder end

**Author's Note:**

> title from a poem by lostcap on tumblr, an actual goddess

**i.**

“We need to talk,” Archie says, and Veronica thinks _shit,_ because she knows where this is going.

Every girl knows where this is going, and Veronica Lodge isn’t every girl - she’s _the_ girl. She’s the sharpest winged eyeliner you’ve ever seen and glittering pearl necklaces and painted-on smiles and for all she adores him, Veronica Lodge does _not_ get unceremoniously dumped by Archie Andrews in a booth at Pop’s. 

He doesn’t get to win this one; she doesn’t get to be another girl in Riverdale crossed off his list.

So she says, “We’re finished,” a statement more than a question, and poor Archiekins looks like he was just run over by a truck. _Good_. That’ll teach him for trying to get the jump on her.

His shock wears off pretty quickly, however, and instead he just looks confused. “Wait, are you breaking up with me or am I breaking up with you? Nevermind,” he doesn’t question her further on it, and that just makes Veronica love him more - Archie Andrews, for all his shallow faults, is at the very core of himself so _good_ that it’s nearly killing Veronica to know they’re over (nearly). “Let’s face it, Ronnie. You haven’t been into this in a while. To be honest I don’t...well, I don’t really know that you ever actually were.”

The thing that’s so weird about it is that Archie doesn’t look mad, or sad, or even relieved - he doesn’t look like how someone ending a relationship is supposed to look. He just looks _concerned_ , and a bit constipated, and it’s making Veronica want to reach out and hold his hand.

But then she remembers they’re breaking up, so she steadfastly refrains.

“Not into it? Archie, you’re the Jess to my Rory.” Now he just looks _more_ confused, and Veronica looks at him like he’s grown a third head. “The Ryan to my Marissa? Dan to my Blair? _Seriously_ , Andrews, you need to brush up on your teen dramas.”

“Ronnie,” he says slowly, still looking like he’s trying to digest everything she’s just thrown at him, “I’m pretty sure none of those couples ended up together.”

 _Oh_. So she has rubbed off on him, at least a little. “Yes, but they _totally_ should have. They just broke up for stupid reasons! Although, I mean, I would totally dump you for Chuck Bass, but Riverdale doesn’t have a Chuck Bass and you’re the only person I want to be with. Promise.”

He doesn’t look like he believes her, Veronica notes, and she doesn’t think it’s just because he doesn’t know what she’s saying. Archie knows _exactly_ what she’s saying - he’s just not buying it.

“What do you think I want, then?” she asks, and she’s almost scared of the answer.

“Well,” Archie begins, like he’s almost scared of giving it to her, but he doesn’t have to. His eyes are flickering pointedly over to a booth across from them, and Veronica turns to it too.

There’s a booth full of Cheryl and a few of her Vixens chattering happily away like the Prom Queen Slash Dictator that she is, and Veronica brushes over that one to look at the one closest - a booth where Betty and Jughead sit, sharing a milkshake, fingers barely brushing as they rest atop the table but looking at each other like they’re everything in the world. He can’t be talking about their relationship as a whole, because Ronnie and Archie basically _had_ that (in a much less subtle way, sure, but they did). He’s not talking about Betty - she’s gorgeous, obviously, but her and Betts are just platonic - so he must be talking about…

Oh, _hell_ no.

“Archie Andrews,” her voice has turned to ice, to steel, and now the claws are out in full, “how _dare_ you. How could you possibly think that’s the sort of person that I am? How could you _ever_ suggest such a thing?” Archie can be stupid sometimes, sure, but Veronica didn’t think he was ‘ _imply she wanted to break up her best friend’s relationship_ ’ stupid.

But apparently he is, if the look of shock on his face and the way he holds up his hands are anything to go off of. “Woah, Ronnie, it’s okay! Why are you so upset about this? I think it’d be really good for you?”

“Good for _me_? What about for Betty? For Jughead?”

“For Jughead?” Now he just sounds even _more_ confused, and Veronica feels about ready to throw her milkshake in his face and walk away - he deserved worse, really. “I think Jughead would be fine with it, actually. I mean, we’ve all been through a lot this past year. We’re all closer than we were. I doubt he’d care, and neither would Betty. They’d just be happy that you’re happy, more than anything.”

It’s all too much. It’s like a bad dream, like one of the nightmares where her pearls are wrapping around her throat so tight that she can’t breathe, except it’s real life and Archie, _her_ Archie, is looking at her with concern and love and fondness all while breaking up with her and suggesting, with no sense of mocking, that she go after her best friend’s boyfriend slash his pseud0-brother. It’s fucking insane, and it’s way too much.

So she stands up without another word, snatching up her purse and turning towards the door.

(What is there left for her to say? _Fuck you_? She may be angry, but Veronica Lodge still has more class than that.)

Archie calls after her, of course. Betty’s eyes follow her with that sweet, unassuming care that Betty always has, and she brushes her off with a wave. Cheryl watches her like she’s a bug under a magnifying glass, something fascinating yet detached, and Veronica waves her off as well. She’s not in the mood for heartfelt talks or petty gossip tonight.

To tell the truth...she doesn’t know what she’s in the mood for.

It’s all Archie Andrews’ fault.

(Isn’t everything?)

 

**ii.**

The colour is called ‘ _This is Not Whine Country_ ”, a perfect merlot, and Betty is painting her toenails like a professional (always colouring inside the lines, that one) when she broaches the subject of He Who Shall Not Be Named.

“You still haven’t told me what happened with Archie,” she says, delicately, hesitantly, and while Veronica knows there’s no pressure in the non-question, she still feels obligated to answer.

It _has_ been two days, after all. She has to end the suspense sometime.

“Betty,” she sighs, pulling her foot out of her best friend's lap - the second coat is all finished now, anyways - and feeling slightly ashamed of the situation as a whole even though it had been _Archie_ who suggested the whole thing, not her. “Archie broke up with me because he thinks I want something else.” Veronica pauses, partly to steel her nerves and admittedly partly for the drama, “Because he thinks I want Jughead.”

Silence.

 _More_.

Veronica doesn’t know what she wasn’t expecting, but it wasn’t _this_ \- certainly wasn’t the look of nothingness that’s taken over Betty’s features. “I swear to you Betts, he’s wrong. This isn’t Something Borrowed, and I have no intention of stealing your man. I don’t know _what_ -”

It takes her a second, once she stops for a moment to take a breath, that Betty is laughing. Laughing _hysterically_. Laughing so hard she’s clutching her sides, and Veronica thinks that the last time she saw her best friend in such hysterics was when Archie spilled his chili in the cafeteria and then promptly slipped in said chili and fell on his ass, again, in said chili. She’s laughing so hard she’s _crying_ , and the weirdest thing about it is that Veronica can’t remember saying a single thing that could even be considered slightly funny.

“How are you laughing about this, Betty? Archie dumped me because he thinks I want _your_ boyfriend. In what world is that a joke to you?”

It’s another half a minute before Betty sobers up enough to talk, wiping the tears away from her eyes and pulling herself back to her straight-spined, Betty-eqsue exterior Veronica knows so well. “I’m sorry, Ronnie. It’s just...kind of ridiculous. You and Jughead? I mean, _seriously_. You have to know that even Archie isn’t stupid enough to suggest something like that.”

 _That’s what I thought_ , she thinks to herself, and says, “Well, apparently, Archie has out-Archie’d himself with this one, because that’s definitely what he was getting at.”

But Betty still doesn’t look the slightest bit concerned, not even now that she’s stopped laughing. Instead she just places a gentle hand on Veronica’s knee and gives it a squeeze, and it’s the fondness in her gaze that breaks Veronica’s heart most of all. Even if the feelings for Jughead aren’t at all there, it’s still kills her that someone could even think she’d put her best friend through something so horrible.

“Ronnie, I know you, and I know you’d never even dream about trying to take Jughead from me. Besides, I know Jughead,” now a wistful smile slips onto the blonde’s face, her eyes twinkling, and Veronica doesn’t feel even the slightest pang of jealousy ( _take that, Andrews_ ), “and I know that even if you did, he wouldn’t be going anywhere any time soon.”

Of course not, Veronica thinks, because that’s how they _are_.

They’re Betty and Jughead, and Veronica and Archie. Kevin is there too, most of the time, and there’s also Cheryl stopping in every once in awhile, with her painted red lips and her bizarre dramatics (that Ronnie has to admit really aren’t that different from her own, they’re actually quite impressive), and the not-quite-frozen heart that Veronica has seen both the worst, and the best of.

 _Cheryl_ , who had texted her after The Archie Situation not with platitudes or empty concern, but merely to say that Archie was a ten for looks but a two for brains, and Veronica could do better.

 _Cheryl_. She remembers where Archie’s eyes had first wandered that night, and thinks -

No. He was definitely looking at Jughead, Veronica is almost fifty percent certain of it, and half-certain is enough for her to not touch the other alternative with a fifty foot pole. The other, not unappealing - just _odd_ \- alternative, the one that Veronica doesn’t want to think about.

So instead she says, “Love ya, Betts. Want to finish up my other foot?”

(Some things are better left ignored.)

 

**iii.**

(Except, then, some things can’t be ignored forever.)

It’s a few hours later, after Veronica steps out of the bathroom - Betty’s spending the night at hers, and she’d been in desperate need of washing the Vixen sweat off of her - that she hears a muffled voice coming from inside her bedroom.

“- Need to let her figure it out for herself, Arch,” Veronica hears, and realize Betty is talking to He Who Shall Not Be Named on the phone, in Veronica’s own bedroom. _Traitor_. She’d storm in there herself, but she’s curious to hear where the rest of the conversation was going. “I know you want to help, but you can’t push someone into these things. This is for Veronica to figure out, and Veronica alone.”

There’s a pause, no doubt Archie going on a passionate rant about _doing the right thing_ , and even without hearing his voice Veronica rolls her eyes. God bless the kid, but he doesn’t know when to stop.

“I _know_ , Archie. We all do. But you know how smart Veronica is,” _that_ feels good to hear, even if she wasn’t supposed to hear it at all, and Veronica feels her ego puff up a bit, “Guarantee she’ll have it all worked out by the end of the week. Just don’t say anything else until then, okay? And maybe don’t tell Jughead - I don’t want to make things awkward for either of them.”

 _Weird_.

Veronica’s heard enough, she thinks, enough to be suspicious, so she taps lightly on the door and says, “You decent, Bettykins? I don’t really care, I’m coming in anyways,” and pretends she doesn’t notice Betty hurriedly slipping her phone into the pocket of her pyjama pants.

Because Betty’s right - she _is_ smart.

Whatever they’re up to, she’ll have it figured out in no time.

 

**iv.**

But it turns out she doesn’t have to, because it turns out Kevin figures it out first.

She watches Jughead from afar, trying to piece it all together, but the simple truth of it remains: there is nothing. A fond, if distant, affection, if she’s being entirely honest similar to what she feels for Archie now that all the passion and lust that had been infused into their short-lived relationship is gone. Veronica likes Jughead, can even admit that she sees what it is that Betty does in him, but beyond that...it’s absent. Void. She is, in the simplest of terms, not in the least bit interested, and no matter how hard she finds herself looking at him that just doesn’t change.

Then one day they’re all sitting at lunch outside, in a typical seating arrangement plus one _minor_ change - Betty and Jughead are beside each other on one bench, Archie and Kevin are on another, and Veronica has her own to herself. It’s still a bit weird, her thigh not brushing up against Archie’s as they eat, their feet not lightly bumping under the table, but somehow she finds that she doesn’t miss it all that much.

He smiles at her over his slice of pizza and she thinks, _yeah_ , they’re going to be okay. That’s the thing about Archie Andrews: stupid as he is, he’s also stupidly hard to stay angry at for long.

Cheryl Blossom, on the other hand, is different. 

Veronica’s in the middle of telling them a story about just _why_ she’s different - about how in the hallway earlier that day she had saw Cheryl _totally_ hanging herself all over Reggie even though he and Ginger had only just ended their thing like, weeks before, and wasn’t Cheryl supposed to be Ginger’s best friend? That was totally going against the code of all female friendships, Veronica was telling them, and the fact of the matter was that Cheryl Blossom, no matter how beautiful she was, or how sweet she could be when she was actually trying, was - 

“Oh. My _god_ ,” Kevin groans, slamming his water bottle against the table with a thud before turning to her. “Veronica, can you and Cheryl do us all a favour and screw each other’s brains out in the storage room before I actually lose my mind? As much as I adore a good enemies-to-lovers story, the sexual tension is getting to the point where it’s making me physically ill.”

Silence.

 _More_.

“Way to take the subtle approach there, Keller,” Jughead mutters under his breath, and Veronica is starting to get the feeling that Kevin’s comment wasn’t just light teasing. She’s starting to get the feeling Kevin’s comment was actually more of a suggestion.

Kevin looks at the disapproving faces of the group (and Veronica’s confused one) before throwing his hands in the air, exasperation seeping from every one of his pores and permeating the air around them. “Someone had to say it eventually! I know you guys said you wanted her to get there on her own, but I didn’t really feel like waiting until my fifties for Cheronica to _finally_ get it together. It was now or never!”

 _Cheronica_.

Veronica realizes dimly that this is a conversation they’ve had before - they minus Veronica, that is, and she thinks about Betty and Archie’s chat on the phone not days before, thinks of the words _need to let her figure it out herself_. Everyone’s known, known for weeks, maybe months. Everyone but Veronica, and she doesn’t feel angry about it, or bitter, or left out. She just feels...she looks around at the group, and Cheryl’s usual table (lacking Cheryl, surprisingly), back to the group, and feels…

She feels like she has to go. 

“I feel like I have to go,” she tells them, and is immensely thankful for the fact that none of them try to stop her.

 

**v.**

Cheryl doesn’t try to stop her, either, when Veronica slips her hand up her cheerleading skirt in the supply closet later that day.

It goes something like this:

Veronica leaves the lunch table and finds Cheryl in the halls, putting up posters for the pep rally coming up a week from now. Veronica offers to help, because she knows Cheryl would never ask (only demand, and she doesn’t want to get to that point quite yet), and she spends the entire time they’re together looking at Cheryl’s lips, legs, eyes, smile - looking at _Cheryl_ , and she realizes (admittedly not for the first time), that she likes what she sees.

So when the redhead somewhat sarcastically (flirtily?) says, “Like what you see, Lodge?” Veronica doesn’t bite back with a witty retort, only says, “Maybe I do, Blossom.” 

Then they’re going into the supply closet to “get more tape” and Veronica’s touching Cheryl’s lips, her legs, touching _Cheryl_ , and while it’s a little strange to be thinking of her ex-boyfriend at this time, she thinks that she might owe Archie a thank you.

And Kevin, and Betty, and Jughead too, actually.

Except then Cheryl’s tugging her hand up further and whispers in her ear, “You promised me ice but this feels more like fire, Lodge,” and Veronica’s pretty sure that the rest of the world can wait a little while longer.

**Author's Note:**

> cheronica is lyfe  
> reviews are always greatly appreciated xx


End file.
